1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to field management, and more particularly to systems, methods and computer program products for assisting construction and capital project companies in reducing project costs and risks.
2. Related Art
In today's business climate, construction management firms engaged in medium and large projects (e.g., sport stadiums, hospitals and healthcare facilities, office buildings, power plants, manufacturing facilities, airports, seaports and railway terminals, multi-unit residential complexes, etc.) have to manage large teams of highly-trained construction professionals and specialists to ensure that partnering, estimating, purchasing, scheduling, engineering, and safety and community relations all go smoothly to produce quality projects. Further, the owners of such projects often require fast completion in order to have the structures resulting from these projects occupied and thus producing revenue. Maintenance of such complex structures by owners during their entire life also requires similar needs for managing large teams of professionals and specialists to ensure smooth operations of capital structures and related infrastructures (e.g., electrical system, plumbing systems, air conditioning equipment, power systems, etc.).
Conventionally, coordinating such large teams involves a lot of paperwork, including documents and documentation. This is especially true in performing field management, punch list management, quality, commissioning, turn-over and safety management, and warranty- and maintenance-related functions. Consequently, construction management and property management firms have sought processes that keep their managers and subcontractors on the job site working (i.e., building and maintaining), rather than in an office shuffling papers. Field management documents include, but are not limited to, field inspections, punch lists, vendor lists, resource lists, task lists etc.
Along with the need to keep construction mangers and subcontractors on the job site rather than in office is a parallel need for synchronization of data between the terminals used by field personnel, a host server or web site, and the terminals operated by managers and supervisors. Data pertaining to particular processes or tasks must be kept synchronized in order to avoid work duplication, unnecessary communications, and other cost-increasing problems. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0123010 to Landry et al., published Jun. 8, 2006, generally discloses a system of synchronizing data in distributed networks. What is needed, however, is data synchronization that is optimized for use in field management particularly for construction and other capital projects.
Given the foregoing, what are needed are systems, methods and computer program products for providing mobile field software that assists construction companies and property management firms in field management activities and facilitates mobile inspections.